Planning a Super Bowl party? It shouldn’t take three group chats, a shared spreadsheet, and a Facebook invite that only half your guests even open to build it happen.
Whether it’s Super Bowl Sunday or any other day of the year, event planning and logistics bog hosts and guests down, creating in-person gatherings harder to pull off.
Birmingham-based entrepreneur Joshua Gilmer built his startup Luau to solve exactly this problem. And now he’s ready to prove that meeting up IRL (in real life) doesn’t have to be so hard.
Getting The Luau Started
Whether you are seeing to host a birthday bash, playdate, or a casual hangout, Luau streamlines the party planning process. The Luau platform obtains all the details toobtainher, including the crafting of the verbiage and the imagery requireded for the invite. The platform then takes care of sfinishing out and tracking RSVPs…and even sfinishs out invites and reminders at the best time for those being invited (perhaps in the evening after kids are asleep).
Guests do not have to download another app, creating it even more convenient.
Gilmer sees it as a platform that can assist busy parents, professionals, and even college students lessen the stress and headaches around keeping up with their social calfinishar.
Luau also offers PartyPass™ devices and an upcoming check-in feature that applys NFC (near field communication) tech for a tap-to-invite option.
Yes, exclusivity is part of the appeal of the feature. But so too is risk and compliance. This can assist Luau become a trusted tech platform on college campapplys and inside fraternities and sororities.
While the company still has a tiny early applyr base, Gilmer declared he is already seeing a lot of repeat customers, suggesting that the platform has a stickiness with busy individuals and families. As the platform scales, Gilmer declared he sees more of an opportunity to tie in with other platforms, like OpenTable, or Airbnb, or babysitting apps, to assist further streamline the party planning process.
AI For Your Social Life
Underpinning Luau is Kai, the AI agent that answers guest questions and wrangles RSVPs. But it also analyzes a applyr’s social life and reveals opportunities for social growth.
Sure, Partiful, Eventbrite, Evite, and Facebook Events already exist. But Gilmer isn’t attempting to build another event platform. He’s building what he calls a “social life operating system” that tackles a deeper problem: The relationship drift that quietly erodes adult frifinishships.
The Founding Story
Gilmer, a UX designer, worked at several marketing and advertising agencies before jumping to work inside Regions Bank. But he was drawn to the rush of the startup world, joining the quick-growing Birmingham startup Linq in 2021.
In a startup, he liked the fact that he could “have an idea on a Monday” and then build something that people apply soon after. One idea he couldn’t obtain away from: Could tech assist improve people’s social lives?
Gilmer, who hosts upwards of 40 dinner parties and obtain-toobtainhers a year, and was frustrated with the lackluster experience of the tools available. So he started working on the idea for Luau in late 2024. He went through the “idea validator” program Velocity at Birmingham’s Innovation Depot.
For him, it is beneficial to be building something like Luau in the city.
“Birmingham is quick becoming an investment hub for future-of-family (FoF) tech,” he declared, pointing to examples like Halogen Ventures, Moxi, and Wyndy. “And FoF builds sense. Birmingham is family-frifinishly. Our culture isn’t just an amazing food scene. It’s little league games, play dates, and movie nights. A lot of people believe Birmingham is construction, healthcare, and that we should stay in our wheelhoapply. But I’d state we prioritize family, and see having kids not as something that is diminishing your life’s potential, but cementing your life’s legacy. We are uniquely cognizant of the pain points other parents feel (like logistical planning fatigue), and can build a better future for them.”
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